Rea and the Blood of the Nectar Read online

  Rea and the Blood of the Nectar

  ©2021 Payal Doshi. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, or photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the author.

  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For more information, please contact:

  Mango & Marigold Press

  [email protected]

  To Mom, Dad, and Norah

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  No One Cares About Birthday Parties

  Chapter 2

  Eleven Pakoras

  Chapter 3

  Amma’s Strange Secret

  Chapter 4

  The Match at Midnight

  Chapter 5

  A Crimson Piece of Paper

  Chapter 6

  Wood Rot & Withered Flowers

  Chapter 7

  Baccara Vintera Verafara

  Chapter 8

  Riddles! Riddles! Riddles!

  Chapter 9

  Pnigalion

  Chapter 10

  Beyond the Banyan

  Chapter 11

  Where Day is Night and Night is Day

  Chapter 12

  The Whispering Walls

  Chapter 13

  Ravishing and Ruthless

  Chapter 14

  A Malevolent Hiss

  Chapter 15

  A Periwhittle’s While

  Chapter 16

  Fear Never Stopped A Fool

  Chapter 17

  A Tear in the Night Air

  Chapter 18

  The Sea of Serpent Lilies

  Chapter 19

  The Most Ordinary of Doors

  Chapter 20

  There Bees Danger

  Chapter 21

  Hoggish Harpies

  Chapter 22

  Magic Is A Fickle Thing

  Chapter 23

  The Blood of the Nectar

  Chapter 24

  The Land on the Other Side

  Chapter 25

  Bloodoath

  Chapter 26

  The Village of the Dead

  Chapter 27

  The Most Trusted Aide

  Chapter 28

  Sour Berries

  Chapter 29

  The Night of Nilaya

  Chapter 30

  The People Have Spoken

  Chapter 31

  Swirls of Shadows

  Chapter 32

  Destiny Awaits

  EPILOGUE

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Excerpt From

  Rea and the Sorcerer of Shadows

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter 1

  No One Cares About Birthday Parties

  Rea wiggled through her bathroom window and landed on the floor with a thud. She’d been spying on Rohan after school, trying to glean details about a game of cricket he had organized. A game to celebrate his birthday, but not hers. His own twin sister’s.

  Rea slammed the window shut.

  It creaked hoarsely on its hinges and a trickle of water dripped down the yolk-colored walls, the blue tarp covering the roof doing little to prevent the leakage.

  “It’s the best we can do for now,” Amma had said when Rea complained that muddy water had splashed on her head while she’d been brushing her teeth. Ignoring the incessant drip, drip, drip, Rea dusted the mud off her school uniform and shook out her shoulder-length hair. She’d been hiding in the bushes snooping on Rohan’s friends, and several leaves had gotten stuck into her thick, wavy curls. As she brushed them out, Rea was thankful she hadn’t come through the front door and risked her grandmother seeing her like this—there would’ve been a loud gasp and too many questions, which she was not in the mood for.

  Rea grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off her face. Anger fizzed within her, ready to burst like soda from a can someone had shaken. She couldn’t believe Rohan didn’t want to include her in his, no, their birthday. It used to be different, back before Rohan met his new friends and decided he was too cool for her.

  The front door clicked open, interrupting Rea’s reverie.

  Rohan was home.

  Most days, Rohan got home after she did, playing cricket in the street with his friends or grabbing a bite of chili-onion fries on the road, while she left school immediately, preferring to avoid any unnecessary social interaction. However, today, because of her expert (and time-consuming) sleuthing, they both ended up arriving home at the same time.

  Rea washed the dirt off her hands with soap, rehearsed what she was going to say and casually stepped into the living room, which doubled as her and Rohan’s bedroom. A soapy drama blared from the TV and Rohan, already sprawled on their frayed mattress, not having bothered to take his dirty shoes off, was reading an article on volcanoes from an old National Geographic magazine an inch from his nose. A plate of fried banana chips rested on his stomach. He chewed so loudly a cow would’ve been annoyed. On a normal day, she’d have walked right past him, but today she went over and cleared her throat.

  He glanced at her; his eyes were hazel like their mother’s.

  “It’s our birthday tomorrow,” she said. “Got any plans?”

  “Nope.”

  “Really? Nothing with your friends?”

  Only because Rea had eavesdropped on two of his friends earlier did she know the truth: the cricket match was tonight, at midnight—the hour they turned twelve.

  Rohan shook his head, licking the black pepper seasoning spotting the corner of his lips.

  Rea narrowed her eyes. So, that’s how he was going to play it. They might be twins, but they were nothing alike. Truth was, she hated having a twin. Everything had to be constantly shared or compared against as if they were two halves of a whole instead of two very separate, very individual beings.

  Why don’t you get grades like Rohan? Amma would ask.

  Because sometimes I can’t focus on what the teacher’s saying, she wanted to say.

  Rohan loves to read, why don’t you?

  Because I love puzzles instead. Give me one with a thousand pieces, or a mystery or quandary you can’t solve, and I’ll sniff out every clue the way I sniffed out Rohan’s secret birthday plans. Rea seethed quietly to herself.

  Rohan makes friends easily; you should learn from him.

  Wasn’t it easier for boys to make friends? All they had to do was play cricket and come up with silly pranks while she had to deal with the mean girls of her grade. That was much harder.

  Rohan this and Rohan that. Rea wished he didn’t exist. But he did. And he was lying to her.

  “So, do you want to celebrate it together?” she asked. “It’s not like Amma’s going to throw us a party.”

  Rohan peered over his magazine. “Since when do you want to hang out with me? Besides, we’re turning twelve, not two. No one cares about birthday parties. They’re lame.” He returned to his reading.

  Rea felt anger building in her chest. Of course he didn’t have the guts to tell her that he hadn’t invited her for the match.

  “Parties are lame, huh?” she crossed her arms. “What about celebrating with a cricke—”

  The front door opened and Amma walked in. The pallu of her saree slipped off her shoulders as she bent to unclasp her sandals. She had returned from her job as a cook for a rich businessman.

  “Rea, aren’t you ready ye
t?” Amma scolded as soon as she saw her. “We leave in five minutes.”

  Ugh. The plantations!

  Amma gave Rohan a kiss on the cheek as she hustled into the room she shared with Bajai, Rea and Rohan’s grandmother.

  “I can’t come. I... er... have homework to do,” Rea said from the doorway. Amma changed out of her saree and into her salwar kameez, which was better suited for picking tea leaves.

  She came out of her room, her purse slung over her shoulder. “You can finish it when we get back.”

  “But I—I—Why do I have to work the slopes while Rohan gets to stay at home?” Rea’s soot-black eyes bore into Amma’s honeyed ones.

  “HEY,” cried Rohan. “Bajai has sprained her back and I have to be here in case she needs anything.” He pointed to the kitchen where their grandmother stood by the stove. She was draped in a pale grey saree, humming happily to herself as she fried dollops of curried vegetables rolled in chickpea flour. The oil hissed and sizzled, and her tightly wound bun gleamed silver like the utensils around her.

  Rea tried to swallow her resentment. Bajai had probably pulled a muscle. Although, it didn’t stop her from cooking all day or obsessing about keeping the house dust-free.

  “This is India,” Rea told her time and time again. “There’s dust hiding beneath dust!”

  Bajai would stop for a moment, her grass broom held upright like a scepter. “Rea, these things are important. One can tell that a family is cultured when no film of dust sticks to their fingertip.”

  Rea sighed. There was no way she could get angry at her grandmother. Bajai was Bajai—she said the weirdest things and Rea loved her to bits, more than she did her mother and certainly more than Rohan.

  “Hurry along,” said Amma. “Everything with you has to be dramatic.”

  Rea scowled as she changed out of her school uniform. The only silver lining was Amma had pulled her and Rohan out of school for the next few days. At first, she thought it was for a surprise birthday trip! Then Rohan was told to take care of Bajai while she was made to go to the plantations.

  It made no sense. Amma was a strict follower of the rules and had forbidden Rea from working the slopes on the sly for extra money (even though they needed it with Amma working two jobs), but today she was making her do exactly that. If the plantation supervisor caught Rea picking tea leaves, Amma would be in serious trouble. Only those over eighteen could work on the plantations. An almost-twelve-year-old, certainly not.

  The more Rea thought about it, the less surprised she became. Amma had recently lost her third job as the Mishra family’s cleaning lady, and with the festival of Diwali ten days away, they needed the money to buy sweets and dry fruits to give to the neighbors.

  A twenty-minute walk later, Amma pushed open the gate to the Tombu Tea Estate. It creaked as it swung shut behind them. The sun, oppressive and scorching, shone overhead, soaking the hills of Darjeeling in liquid gold. As far as the eye could see, rows of tea shrubs unfurled like carpets, rolling high and low to reveal mist-covered valleys and the snow-clad peaks of the Himalayan mountains.

  Rea dragged herself up the slopes. Her shoes itched. They were given to her when the Mishra family’s youngest daughter had outgrown them. Overuse had nearly scratched out the logo on the side and the shoes were a size too large. Instead of giving them away, Amma forced Rea to wear them with two pairs of socks, and it made her feet sweat buckets in this terrible heat.

  Hiding between the tea rows, Rea spotted others like her pretending to play while furtively helping their tea-picking mothers to get a higher day’s pay. She hated that girls were the ones expected to help on the slopes while the boys never had to. At home, too, Rohan, got to play in his free time, which was always more than hers. If he was asked to help, he’d weasel out of it, saying he had too much homework to do. Amma never questioned him about it. Even Bajai would fall for his lies. “He’s such a clever boy, our ‘man of the house,’” she’d say, as she covered his cheeks with kisses and said that Rohan looked just like their grandfather, who neither Rea nor Rohan had ever seen.

  Man of the house, pff. He barely lifted a finger.

  Although, there was one thing Rohan had done that Rea cherished. He had taught her how to play cricket. When they were younger, they spent entire afternoons playing the game. That’s how she discovered her talent for bowling. Oh, the rush of rolling a ball between her fingers, deciding whether to bowl with spin or pace!

  Now, her blood bubbled thinking about how he had lied to her, pretending his birthday plans didn’t exist. Sure, they barely spoke to each other; he preferred the company of his friends while she preferred to be by herself, but every year they celebrated their birthday together—it was the one thing that hadn’t changed between them. Knowing Amma couldn’t afford to buy them presents, they went to the bazaar and spent the few rupees they had collected on ice lollies, Ferris wheel rides, or platefuls of roadside momos and chili-onion fries.

  Except this year, everything had changed. Amma turned doubly aloof and anxious, Bajai seemed old and a lot more forgetful, and Rohan had grown four inches, discovered girls liked him, and lost interest in finding out more about their Baba.

  Rea wandered down the slopes until she found a shady spot. She sat beside a tea row, fiddling with the hem of her skirt. Lately, she’d been feeling like she was standing still while everyone was passing her by.

  A pair of baby sparrows chased each other, their peanut-colored wings flapping to get airborne. Rea remembered how as kids, she and Rohan would play detective and go through Amma and Bajai’s things to find clues about Baba. When they found nothing and she got upset, Rohan would challenge her to a match of who could spit the greatest number of berry seeds into a cup. Whoever won got to pick the cartoon show they would watch later that evening. When Rohan would miss Baba, they would dry balls of cow-dung into stones, and hiding in the bushes, fling them at passers-by. If one of them got caught, the other one would laugh so hard their bellies would ache.

  “Maybe I ought to show up and bust his match,” Rea said to a curved tea leaf. Not having anyone to talk to, she often confided in the tea shrubs. She had grown up playing amongst them, and thought of them as friends. She knew their scent, their taste, and the time it took a new tea leaf to grow and blossom until it was picked.

  “Wouldn’t the look on his face be priceless?” she asked the tea leaf. “Especially in front of his stupid friends.”

  Suddenly, an idea formed in Rea’s head. She jumped to her feet, excited to get her plan started. The first thing to do, she thought, is to pick a partner in crime. She didn’t want to show up alone. Besides, two girls breaking up a game of cricket was way more effective than one. Rea sorted hurriedly through names of girls she knew. But by the time her feet carried her to the bottom of the slopes, only one name came to mind: Leela.

  Rea rolled her eyes. There had to be someone else.

  “REAAAA?”

  Amma’s voice tore through the valley. She was frantically searching for her, her eyes darting left and right. The dust-blue dupatta of her salwar kameez fluttered in the wind, scattering knots of tea leaves from the basket hanging down her back. Their earthy perfume floated into the air, adding a dash of spice to the sweltering afternoon.

  “WHERE ARE YOU?”

  Rea grabbed a handful of tea leaves and ran up the steep slope.

  “Didn’t I tell you to pluck where I can see you?” Sweat dripped down the sides of Amma’s face. It was October and the receding monsoons had left the skies swollen and humid.

  “I was right there!” Rea pointed to a vague spot.

  “I can’t have you running off to wherever it pleases you. Not today. And what’s this?” Amma waved a tea bud across Rea’s face. The bud was hidden within four tiny leaves.

  “How many times must I tell you? Pluck buds with two leaves. This is fine-picking season remember, not coarse-picking. If you don’t pick correctly, we won’t get paid.”

  The supervisor, a man in brown pan
ts and a vomit-colored shirt with large sweat stains, was shouting at a newly hired plucker for the same reason. Rea wanted to tell Amma she didn’t care and that she was welcome for helping her on a day when she had an extremely important plan to carry out.

  “I bet Rohan is busy reading his stupid magazine and has no clue where Bajai is,” snapped Rea.

  “Why must you be mean to your brother all the time?” said Amma.

  “I am NOT! He gets away with doing the easy things like being at home and looking after Bajai. And you always let him.” Rea’s gaze turned icy. The blaze of the sun beat against her skin. “I want to go home.”

  “You! Is there a problem?” yelled the supervisor.

  Amma quickly shook her head as Rea ducked behind a tea shrub.

  “Get up. He’s gone,” she whispered after a minute. “Now get plucking and no more loafing around.”

  Rea stretched her neck to see how much further they had to go, and her heart sank. With so many rows to pluck, she was going to be here until the end of the day. Between then and dinnertime, she would have to leave the plantations, reach its foothills, cross Chowk Raasta, and get to her village where she hoped she could convince someone to join her for the midnight cricket match. That would’ve been hard enough if she had a best friend to lean on... And if Rea was honest with herself, she didn’t really have a best friend, or even a group of friendly acquaintances to call on.

  Girls her age were either obsessing over boys or grades—neither of which she cared much about. What she cared about was why Amma hadn’t eaten the night before or who her Baba was or why a classmate was staring at her funny. The only girl who Rea had spent any time with was Leela. She lived three houses down and had a giant family. It wasn’t that Rea didn’t like her, but she found her exhausting at times. Leela was a free spirit—optimistic when times weren’t good, excited to try new things, and too eager to hang out. It could be really draining and Rea had found herself backing away from Leela more and more this year.

  Instinctively, Rea fingered the locket around her neck. Not long ago, she had stolen it from Amma’s nearly empty jewelry box. Its silver edges had dulled with age and the intricate engravings of flowers on its sides had oxidized turning black.